February 24, 2011

From “Plaything’s Passage” by Rebecca Q. DiGiacinto

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Every child’s plaything knows that the interior of the playroom is as the interior of a child’s fondest dreams: warm, safe, and bursting with possibilities. It is a dreamworld, lush and fantastic and predictable in its unpredictability.

But outside…

Children see the world outside as dangerous, even frightening. The world outside their playroom is the world of a child’s nightmares, of shadows and monsters and things learned parents insist aren’t real but every child with a heartbeat believes in.

So by venturing outside the playroom without a child was to venture into the unknown, the dark, the dangerous.

Most that made the journey never returned.

 

February 16, 2011

From “Banana Tango Orangutang” by Kel Z. O’Cuthbert

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The most exhausting part of answering the corporate email account was the Canadian schizophrenic, a latter-day Francis E. Dec who constantly used the webform as an outlet for his disjointed word salads. Laszlo Sandor would always sign his own name, but used a canny variety of sock puppet email addresses to circumvent the company spam filters, which were admittedly modest.

Why exactly Mr. Sandor has chosen a small Midwestern printer as an outlet for his deranged mind Penny never had been able to puzzle out.

His latest missive, which tipped the scales at over 200k of text, ran thus:

“WHEN NOT IN THEN BUT THEN PLOTTING WELL BORDERS OR THEIR BOUNDARIES SO REFERRED ELSEWHERE ALONG WITH ALL OTHER MOST PRECIOUSLY FOREVER JUST THAT NOMENCLATURES STORED OR SO IN THEIR MOST PRECIOUS DATABASES BUT THEN WHY NOT ALSO JUST CONSIDER NOT SO FAST WHY WELL NODDINGS FROM MOST PRECIOUS WELL UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY NOW ALSO JUST THAT FOREVER JUST THAT OUR TO OUR MOST PRECIOUS BONES HIM PROFESSOR JOHN T. CASTEEN III SIR OF COURSE SEPARATE ISSUES BUT THEN ALSO JUST THAT INVOLVINGS OF EACH AND EVERY ONE OF NOT SO WHY NOT WELL NODDINGS IS JUST THAT BUT THEN ALSO JUST THAT ALL RECOGNITIONS FROM OTHERS WHY SO WELL PAYED DUES TO RECREATE ALL BORDERS ALSO JUST THAT ALL EACH AND EVERY FEES OR SO MUST IS JUST THAT MOST PRECIOUS ALONG WITH EACH AND EVERYONES OF WHAT WELL NO NOT BLESSINGS BUT THEN ALL THEIR SO REFERRED whatchamacallit NOT A BAD DEAL OVER ALL.”

The email went on for some time like that, with Wikipedia and BBC links interspersed in a way Penny could only guess was intended to support Sandor’s “arguments.”

“ALSO BOWING MY OUR MOST PRECIOUS HEADS TO MAM POET MAM SIR GUS GLIKAS SIR TO REPENT OR NOT BUT SIR MOST HUMBLY NOW AND FOREVER TO JOIN YOU OUR NEXT SECRETARY GENERAL OF UNITED NATIONS OURS WITH MOST PLEASURE NOW AND FOREVER THAT SIR MOST ALMIGHTY AGAIN THAT SIR AL GORE SIR.”

The United Nations was a recurring element, though Penny was never sure what exactly Mr. Sandor was trying to say about it. She skipped to the bottom:

“AND MOST PRECIOUSLY ALSO JUST WEATHER ALWAYS JUST THAT SAME ALWAYS JUST THAT MOST PRECIOUS ALWAYS JUST THAT UNDISTURBED FOREVER JUST THAT SO AGAIN IS JUST THAT FOREVER STEPS AND ‘7 POINT PLEDGE’ ALSO JUST THAT MOST PRECIOUSLY ALSO JUST ALL OTHERS WELL AGAIN IS JUST THAT TO HELP ACHIEVE REALIZATIONS OF THE ABOVE MOST PRECIOUSLY FOREVER JUST THAT.”

 

February 15, 2011

From “Up the Crystal Staircase” by Mark Amiton

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“Maybe so, maybe so.” Geraldine puffed on her cigar. “But let me ask you something in return. What if you perceived the world around you as a set of interlocking crystal staircases, with damnation at the bottom and salvation at the top, even as you were unsure which direction was which?”

“Why the hell would I ever think that?” Moses scoffed.

“Schizophrenia. Head Trauma. Surfeit of imagination. Virtual reality helmet. The ‘why’ isn’t important, but the ‘what’ is. Tell me how someone who perceived the world like that would appear to you.”

“Really weird, probably. Always trying to climb things that weren’t there and looking around.”

“But let’s say he had the power to alter your own perceptions, to make you see and feel what he saw and felt. Would that mean that your point of view had simply changed, or would it signify that, for all intents and purposes, he had fashioned a a set of interlocking crystal staircases out of the very elemental air?”

 

January 21, 2011

From “Lady Milvy and the Riddle of the Garden” by Katrina P. Sunderlund

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Lady Milvy vanced with flowers crowned
And trighted through the dale
No harlop nor gumsy spilky sound
Did johten with a wail

And when to a punzley lock she came
No lyr was she to nace
She slorried two times and with no blame
Did she holvoo that place

Harvard lowered the paper and glanced at his tired and broken comrades, caked with the grime of a fortnight’s march through garden and stream.

“That’s supposed to set us free?”

 

January 17, 2011

From “Long Beautiful Day” by C. M. Y.

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Long days with the sun at just the right angle to cast stark shadows yet bright enough to fade the world around the edges like an old photograph…the sort of thing you think of in moments of peril. And yet you usually can’t name a date, or a time, or a place. Only impressions remain, the gestalt of a hundred school’s-out summer hours. Most numerous when we’re young, they fade into obscurity and oblivion as responsibility and adulthood arrive hand-in-hand.

I have taken it upon myself to locate those lost days, in whatever form they now reside, and to bring them back to the world. Don’t bother telling me why I shouldn’t–people with far too much common sense have laid every reason from madness to tilting at windmills by my feet. Instead, ask me how you can know my progress and my state.

Look for a day which starts out with a warm glow of anticipation, and then stretches out impossibly long in love, laughter, and light. Look for a day when the years roll off your back, no matter how many have accrued. Look for a day when once again every atom of the fields trembles with sweet possibility.

That’s how you’ll know I’m still out there.

That’s how you’ll know I’ve succeeded.

 

December 27, 2010

From “Her Refrain” by Jody Y. Gallagher

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Melodious music drifts over you as you approach the stairwell, carried by an impossibly rich and pure voice. The words aren’t important–are they ever?–but as you listen you can discern paeans to sunlight, beauty, and rain.

Part of you insists that you climb the stairs without delay, to uncover the source of the beautiful refrain. But another voice–a deeper, more primal part–suggests that you stay in place, rooted, and hear as much of the soaring music as you can. Clambering up the marble steps would add an unhealthy permissiveness to the music, and might startle the song into an early end or even provoke the singer into hurried flight.

The two viewpoints swirling within eventually come to a compromise, and you begin to easy your way up, taking great care that not a single shoe squeak interrupts the sonic glory from on high. It takes far longer to climb in such a manner than simply charging the steps, but it is worthwhile: by the time you reach the top, the song has neither stopped nor faltered. You are able to see the singer, leaning against a marble column and looking up into a skylight.

She isn’t at all what you expected.

 

December 5, 2010

From “The Overlooked Inquiry” by Paul Trudits

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“State your name.”

“Paul Trudits.”

A pause. “We have no record of you,” the computerized voice said. “Please stand by.”

“No record? I’ve been in the system for years.” Paul’s protest elicited no response.

“We will need to determine which Trudits family you belong to,” the voice said at length. “Please answer yes if any of the following statements pertain to you.”

“Okay, but I’m not sure how-”

“I grew up at Briscombe House in Surence, Stuttery.”

“What? No!”

“My aunt was originally from Unteart village in Gauscierry.”

Paul scratched his head. “What is that supposed to mean? I don’t-”

“My father was stationed at Suarkend in Zamastrahar Province during the war.”

“Where the hell are you getting this? I don’t even know what that means!”

 

December 4, 2010

From “That Present Emptiness” by G. H. D. Covey

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You have been, for the past several weeks, bothered by a restless disquiet. Not a physical malady, but an emotional one, a tight knot in the middle chest, near where one feels a broken heart but felt nowhere near as keenly. It is an empty feeling, dull yet with edges of glass.

Filling it has been difficult. Normally, busywork or strenuous leisure is enough to keep emotional pain of that sort at an arm’s length, but that has had no effect–indeed, the effect of trying to ignore it seems to make the disquiet all the stronger. Neither exercise nor food seems to have an effect, and weekends to not dull the sting as they so often do for doldrums of other sorts.

Asking around, you find that many have experienced the same before, as if in a long-forgotten dream, but are at a loss to describe how it was conquered. All they are sure of is that it’s a malady born of complacency, of stasis, of rut and routine. To break free is to step outside the ordinary.

But the ordinary is all you know.

 

November 12, 2010

From “Deep Daybreak” by John Sullivan

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This post is part of the November Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s challenge is to write a drabble: a story exactly 100 words long.

“But it seemed so real…” Ohns said, tears in his eyes.

“That’s how dreams are,” said the dark-haired child. “We make sense of them, fill in the details.”

“What’s going to happen to everyone?” Ohns cried.

“The sleeper must awaken, but nothing will be lost. We will wake up, and be whole once more.”

Ohns nodded hesitantly. “I think I’m ready.”

The sky bloomed with radiance, overwhelming everything—from the twilight city of Eswe to Clen by his lake–and gently washing it away.

In the ICU, Jackie Sullivan awoke, and Ohns’ world vanished into the recesses of his being.

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own drabbles:
Bettedra (direct link to the relevant post)
FreshHell (direct link to the relevant post)
CScottMorris (direct link to the relevant post)
AuburnAssassin (direct link to the relevant post)
Aheila (direct link to the relevant post)
Bibbo (direct link to the relevant post)
hilaryjacques (direct link to the relevant post)
Proach (direct link to the relevant post)
jonbon.benjamin (direct link to the relevant post)
rmgil04 (direct link to the relevant post)
PASeasholtz (direct link to the relevant post)
Regypsy (direct link to the relevant post)
Madelein.Erwein (direct link to the relevant post)

 

November 2, 2010

From “Another Oh Itshay Moment” by Calvin Greenbough

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Having a worrisome disposition and an introspective bent, my mind likes to keep itself busy by staging existential crises in moments of downtime when I ought to be relaxed or otherwise blase. I call these “Holy Shit” moments.

Standing in the express line at Metromart behind a pair of sorority girls with far more than ten items and a series of credit cards that kept being declined, without even a rack of tabloid magazines to glance over, my mind decided it would be a good time for a “Holy Shit” moment.

“Holy shit,” I said to myself. “This isn’t a game, or a movie, or anything else. It’s real. I’m here, right now, looking through my eyes.”

I reeled a bit as the sisters from Theta Theta Whatever pulled out their fourth card of the transaction. “I’ve never experienced anything outside of me; I’ve never even seen myself outside of a mirror,” I continued. “I really am Derek Ulster. I’ll never be anyone else, never see from anyone else’s point of view.”

A rising panic clutched at my heart. “My life is real, I’m living it right now, yet I’ve wasted so much of it. I’m wasting it right now! I could die tomorrow. What if this is all there is? I could be watching the sunset on a tropical beach, and instead I’m waiting in line at Metromart for the five-hundredth time in my life!”

“Next please,” the teller cried. The feeling rapidly vanished, and I felt the panic subsiding. Sheepishly, I added a bag of potato chips to my meager basket–a little starch to keep my mind sleepy and listless.

 

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